The Ecco: The Vibrator

Allison Behringer (DE 2024)

10 min

What happens when an old woman and a young woman walk into a sex toy shop?

THE ECCO is an international non-commercial initiative designed to tug at the boundaries of the world of audio storytelling, journalism, and documentary work. They bring together talents in different parts of the world — journalists, sound designers, audio producers, sound artists, & writers— all united by a common goal: to push themselves and each other out of their work-related comfort zones and explore the different shapes audio documentaries can take, where they may intersect with art and what the impact of such playful exploration can have.

This was made during an immersive retreat where a curated group of talents collaborate, experiment, and support each other in crafting audio projects that are as diverse as they are profound

Written and Produced by Allison Behringer
Voice performance and script advising by Kelly Elsasser
Advising and story editing by Jamin Bauomy, Luisa Beck, Lena Von Holt, Phoebe McIndoe and Sara Zarreh
Music by Dara Hirsch
Mastering by Jeff Emtman.

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All My Friends Are Turning Into Stars

Amber Devereux (UK 2023)

9 min

Originally commissioned for BBC Radio 4's Short Cuts, All My Friends Are Turning Into Stars is an exploration of chrononormativity, the idea that we all follow the same timeline, and what it means to live in opposition to it. It is a journey through space and time by way of Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, the existential angst of turning 30, an astronomer in Chile, and a slightly unnerving 1950s public information film about how to be a person.

Produced by Amber Devereux
Featuring Dr Matthew Temple, Research Fellow, Universidad Diego Portales, additional voices by Lou Sutcliffe and Alessa Catterall, featuring quotes from De Profundus by Oscar Wilde, Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and In A Queer Time And Place by Jack Halberstam.

With thanks to Axel Kacoutie

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Landed - The Family Farm

Farmerama / Col Gordon and Katie Revell (UK 2021)

30 min

What if we’ve been getting this wrong?” Col Gordon is a farmer’s son from the Scottish Highlands. After a decade away, he’s finally returned to the place that he loves: his family farm. Now, he’s eager to start realising his vision for an agroecological future: a future in which rural areas are alive with culture, many more people work on the land, farms operate in sympathy with nature, and nutritious food is available to everyone in society. But now that he’s back, Col’s starting to wonder whether this vision can be achieved within the existing family farm model. Increasingly, it seems the odds are stacked against farms like his.

Many are struggling to survive, let alone to employ people and deliver good food affordably to local communities. As older farmers retire without succession plans, and their land is amalgamated into large industrial operations, the future of the small family farm looks pretty bleak. As he wrangles with all of this, Col stumbles across something that throws his vision – and his very understanding of farming – into doubt. What does it mean to say that “The family farm is a colonial concept”? And might this jarring idea be the key to understanding the problem – as well as its potential solutions?

Produced by Col Gordon and Katie Revell
Executive Producer Abby Rose
Music by Dagger Gordon and Col Gordon

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Generative Engine

Joan Schuman (US 2022)

10 min

Sounds and stories, like dreams, elude our grasp towards a future deemed to be untouched, untarnished.

Along a series of voiced ‘book pages’ echoing from Joan’s creative sonic archive of more than 20 years ago, comes an intersection generated with material lifted up from the unconscious. Collisions of narrative are reconsidered along the timescape of dreams. It’s very much of the now and of a past that appears in the present. What is spoken and whirled emits a barely linear story accessing the cycles of death, but also the collective symbology of end-times and freedom.

This melding is driven by an energetic stirring of borrowed lines from the poet-theorist, Nicole Brossard, and the theorist-philosopher Gilles Deleuze—from texts produced in the early 1970s (A Book by Brossard and Negotiations by Deleuze). These ‘pages’ comprised a sonic engine originally played in a gallery space and ceded over to the machine’s shuffle mode. Now, in present time, both a past and a future unfurl. The ship of the night floats through turgid waters. A neat continuum of story is interrupted within itself swirling like an invertebrate, horizontal and regenerate. The underworld knows no time. Sounds, like dreams, elude our grasp towards a future deemed to be untouched, untarnished.

Vocals + mix: Joan Schuman
Texts + Words: Nicole Brossard + Gilles Deleuze
Composition: Joan Schuman derived from Creative Commons licensed freesound

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Mexico City Travelogue

Julia Mitrić (US 2023)

13 min

The narrator collects sounds on the streets of Mexico City and weaves them into an audioscape about music and the experience of traveling while recovering from illness.

Produced by Julia Mitrić

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Euphoric Transformations

Charlotte Morlie (US /BE 2023)

11 min

Charlotte Morlie is a Belgian audio producer living in Brooklyn, New York. In her first non-narrated piece, she uses both interview and archival tape to convey a story of transness and queer joy. 

Produced by Charlotte Morlie
Special Thank You to Em Panetta 

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Dancing Ideal: Maja

Ioannis Valasakis (UK 2023)

Ioannis Valasakis · Dancing Ideal: Maja 2023

8 min

Reflections from Maja, a dancer who studied in Gothenburg's Ballet Akademie, on her relationship with dance and her body, shared in hushed nighttime confessions. A poignant sonic portrait of a dancer in the throes of self-discovery and acceptance.

Producer - Ioannis Valasakis

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In The Dark What’s New: Bedstuy Beats

Vivienne Schutz (DE 2023)

1 min

Vivien Schütz is a German radio maker living in Brooklyn, New York. She typically produces radio documentaries and fictional stories for German public radio, but this was her first time experimenting with something non-narrated piece using only field recordings.

The piece was inspired by the prompt "What does your neighborhood sound like to you?". It’s called “Bedstuy Beats”. Bedstuy is short for Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, where Vivien has been living for the last two years. A lot of the recordings were spontaneous — she just grabbed her phone when something interesting was happening around her.

Produced by: Vivienne Schutz

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In The Dark What’s New: For the Love of Reptiles

Grace Heerman (US 2023)

16 min

Grace Heerman is a new audio producer living in New York. She was primarily a copywriter, until she started experimenting with audio last year.

“For the Love of Reptiles” is a fun account of what it means to be a reptile owner today.

Producer - Grace Heerman

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In The Dark What’s New- Hey I'm in a Bit of a Hurry

Rasmus Malm (SE 2023)

3 min

Rasmus Malm is a journalist from Sweden who has made documentaries for Swedish radio and podcast platforms, but this is his first time experimenting with a personal story.

Hey I'm in a Bit of a Hurry" is short piece made up of fragments from Rasmus’s diary. Telling this story may have even changed his life.

ACCESS ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Produced by Rasmus Malm

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